Hello. I know I *probably* should not pay attention to people who try to bash Gentoo but after a while it becomes pretty hard to do so.

The usual arguments are: long install process; long build times; not as stable as other distributions .. and let's not forget .. "rice".

Now, the install process can be pretty lengthy .. but I've never experienced an install which took more than one day .. and it's pretty equivalent in length to a normal FreeBSD install I'd perform. + once it's over .. well .. it's no longer a problem.

Long build times .. I have to agree on this one .. but only with cirtain packages .. I don't even dare install something like Gnome or KDE .. but 3 packages I *do* install stick out when it comes to build time: Qt, Firefox and Thunderbird. But .. it's still a relatively small number of packages which take too long to build .. compared to the total number of ebuilds.

Not stable as .. say .. Slackware .. or Debian, because it's bleeding edge. I have simply not experienced this issue.

Rice. I don't use Gentoo for extra speed. I don't believe it can really make a huge difference .. it's really not That important to me. I chose Gentoo because I like portage, I like the install process [yes, I like it, it gives me a bloat-free system to start off with]. I have nothing against editing configuration files. It's as close to perfection in the Linux distribution world as I've got [and I've been through suse, red hat, mandrake, fedora, debian, slackware and some other which I can't remember at the moment].

The above mentioned and stuff like "emerge --update world broke my system" are the usual stuff comming out of gentoo basher's mouths .. but I just can't see their points. Could someone please enlighten me ? Is Gentoo really sort of a "black sheep" of the Linux Distro world because it "requiers ALL THAT EXTRA time" ?

My opinion is that it isn't. But I'd sure like to know where people get these "ideas". And a Gentoo advocacy page would be even better [does anyone know of one ?]

Well I have mentioned on numerous threads in the past why I like gentoo but all I can say is Ive tried MANY distros and I feel gentoo leaves them standing in the following areas:

Documentation
Stability
Excellent newbie friendly forum with minimal RTFM rubbish
Portage : A innovation and a half ....a package manager that actually works without the user needing to be a guru

In reference to docs I remember following docs from other distros to the letter and key stuff was missed out or written in a ridiculously obscure manner. At least with gentoo stepping you through the install you understand the vital elements of your system and actually edit files and the results of the edit do as stated .......not wipe your O/S because the author of the specified article missed out the 10 steps prior to that

In reference to stability I remember using distros like redhat which installed automaticaly with window managers and other bells and whistles .......people at that time said linux was the most stable O/S ......well at that time I found it to be crap , unstable(e.g crashed constantly).

In referrence to portage well it EASILY outclasses all other linux distro package managers I have used .

Man there are so many reasons why gentoo is good ........well i would probably be here all day if I wen into them ......and I have done so numerous times anyway.

Yeah there is still room for improvement but anyone that is saying gentoo sucks based on a comparisson with other distros musn't have a clue IMHO .........for a start other distros need to actually be alot stricter about what stuff they put on their stable branch as well as a multitude of other stuff dependant on the distro in question. Maybe there is a distro out there that makes gentoo suck but ive yet to find anything close and Ive tried the following

Suse
Redhat
Mandrake
Solaris [unix i know but still:-) ]

Those are just the ones to hand but there are others

Gentoo gets my vote easily
Redwing_________________Never do today what you can put of until tommorow ..........unless its to do with a x86

In reference to the install process well I used other distros and after all there waffle I was still alien to linux .......it is lengthy but it enables newbies to become linux competent and in the long term surely thats going to lead to more guru linux users which is only good for linux as a whole ........where as before linux was in many cases only accessible to people who could afford to go on courses or buy big books ........on certain distros ive found there to be a slightly elitist mentallity I feel gentoo is breaking the mold with that .......which is good as I dont see why it needs to be like that .......I mean the whole ideology of linux and opensource is good and can be great if used in the correct way. I just think .......treat others the way you want to be treated ......and for the most part thats what I feel this forum is like .......It is good for the Gentoo distro and adopting that mentallity as opposed to RTFM attitude ......with no knowledge of how hard a user might have studied is a good policy ._________________Never do today what you can put of until tommorow ..........unless its to do with a x86

I for one am sick of Gentoo bashers. I'm not saying everyone should like Gentoo, it's not for everyone (no distro is, that's one of the areas where WIndows gets it wrong); but Gentoo seems to have become sort of a poster-child for NIMBY-style other-distro bashers in the same way Linux is that poster-child in the Windows fanboi world. I'm one of the (alleged) few who tried Slackware and didn't stick with it; how often do you get people trashing Slack like they do your and my fave distro?

and i for one am sick of gentoo
updated sshd , restarted sshd
restarting sshd.... [Ok]
logged out
wanted to log back in
connection refused

GREAT!

431days uptime down the drain
now the stupid server won't boot anymore either
mysql init script broke about 3/4 year ago, so i had to run it in a screen session, how elegant

that shit costs me alot of money ffs

not to mentio compiletimes 4 days to get a somewhat working system on a laptop
then xmms becomes hardmasked

then updating a permanently heavy loaded server is a pain in the ass

installed debian sid on a testserver, it worked without flaws in less time than gentoo, which wouldn't boot at all, altough i compiled the kernel with all options needed and grub install working w/o errors.

sad to say it, i no longe consider gentoo for anything. not even for people who are starting out with linux, with stage 1 installation instructions gone.

Why did you bring this thread back? WHY?!?_________________The popularity of Bernie Sanders tells me there is a large group of people in this country who want to do what is right, what is moral, and what is virtuous -- and yet have no idea how.

I left Gentoo about couple months ago after my hard drive lost all the data on it. (Yes it was ext3.) At that point I didn't want to bother setting up Gentoo again. So I decided to install FreeBSD on my laptop as an experiment. About 2 months later it's going to be my OS on my desktop system. I'm very impressed with what the developers did. If you decide to use it be sure to use the stable tree when you sync your ports tree. Unless your box is immortal when it comes to failed installs then by all means.

If in doubt test it out under a VM, but personally i prefer dual booting(better performance processor/graphics wise ect.)